on art, film, &c., by greg allen

I'm still puzzled by this Gerhard Richter that sold in London a couple of weeks ago. It's a photo of a squeegee painting mounted on dibond. The print is dated 2006, but the painting it's based on is from 1999. There's no useful provenance or any other documentation mentioned, and little is expected; the auction houses, and Phillips especially, regularly bail on providing even cursory info on off-season, entry-level lots like these. Time is money.

But the artist himself hasn't published any info on it, either. It's not mentioned in his exhaustive website, and though it seems related to other Richter photo versions of paintings, there's nothing quite like it in Richter's published editions.

Until very recently, that is. This picture seems to be a precursor to the Cage Grid giclee prints, which in turn led to the "facsimile objects" Richter collector and entourage member Joe Hage has started publishing as museum fundraisers. More on those later.

Untitled (2006) is a photo of Abstraktes Bild 858-4. Both are on dibond panel, but the photo is 2/3 smaller: 28x40 cm vs 50x72cm. I've sized the two images above to scale for comparison. As its CR number suggests, Abstraktes Bild 858-4 is one of a series, a suite, actually, of eight squeegee paintings. Seven are on identically sized aludibond panels, and one is larger, on canvas. I have to think they were sold together out of Marian Goodman's Sept. 2001 exhibition, because they have been shown a lot, and all together.

So someone got the full set, a whole roomful of squeegee paintings, and someone else got a small photo of one, a consolation prize? A bonus? A one-off gift to a friend or employee? I have no idea, which is one reason it interests me.

Untitled (2006) is a highly realistic representation of a completely abstract painting. Yet for all its apparent transparency, it hints at an aspect of Richter's practice that is undocumented, or at least undisclosed. It's like an update of Stella: what you see is what you don't see.

As is his wont, Gabriel Orozco found his narrative, this time in India, in the stone wall darkened by contact with the hair of people who rested against it as they sat in these seats. We don't know who they were.

I am pleased to introduce a work that combines these two threads of presence and absence, specificity and universality, anonymity and celebrity, found object and markmaking.

Untitled (Joan Collins Toile de Jouy) is a shaped work, a painting, really, comprising an upholstered headboard from Ms. Collins' New York apartment, altered in collaboration over the years by her and, apparently, occasionally, (an)other(s).

Interested parties, or at least those interested in having physical custody of the work, should contact me quickly, before the 14th. That'll give us enough time to get the headboard from the auction in LA. Me, I'm happy with it right where it is. And wherever it ends up.

The big Olafur Eliasson news out of Paris last week was obviously Ice Watch, the circle of ancient Greenland glacier fragments melting and popping in front of the Pantheon.

depiction of Your Star test flight, 2015, image: olafureliasson.net

This week Olafur is in Stockholm launching Your Star, a public art commission from the Nobel Committee. It is inspired, he explains, by the "space before an idea," the space from which an idea emerges, the moment when you first register a curiosity or change. In this case, it is the change in the night sky over Stockholm caused by an LED tethered to a balloon, which is powered by a battery charged by a solar panel that captured the energy of the summer sun. Your Star is a new star that returns the light of summer to the dark night of Stockholm in December.

RT-LTA video still of Skystar 180 deploying from its monitoring station

But even if you're still in Paris, you can get a sense that something is different in the sky, and change is afoot on the ground. @domainawareness notes that Paris intelligence officials have leased a surveillance balloon from the Israeli defense contractor RT-LTA Systems, to monitor protestors and other members of the public during the climate talks.

The Skystar 180 was used in Israel's war on the Gaza Strip last year, and is deployed near contested holy sites in the Old City of Jerusalem, as well as throughout East Jerusalem and Palestinian areas in the occupied West Bank.

One is art, one is policing. One you watch, one watches you. It's easy to think of differences, but Skystar and Your Star look so much alike that I have to wonder what else they have in common: they are both designed to exist in and affect public space. In his Nobel Week greeting, Olafur talked about the importance of public space:

It is where people come together, to exchange opinions, to disagree, to agree, and through doing all of this they help co-creating society. So does culture. I think it's very important to keep our public space alive, resilient, and open for change and renegotiation.

Think of that in Paris, where protestors try to influence the political negotiators, primarily by influencing media narratives--and where the looming presence of police surveillance seeks to document what it can't intimidate or silence by its presence.

O hi. I am here, watching you.

And now think of the original public sites where these aerostats are permanently deployed: occupied neighborhoods where Palestinians and Arab Israelis under decades-long seige or contestation where renegotiation takes place with rocks, bullets, tear gas, and bulldozers.

It turns out both Skystar and Your Star function by being seen. The former as a projection of power and potential deterrent, the latter as an inspiration. This turns out to bear an uncanny resemblance to the original Project Echo satelloon, which was created to be a visible presence in the sky, an inspiring beacon of American power and progress. It was also intended to acclimate people to the presence of satellites overhead, to normalize the eventuality of being watched by surveillance satellites.

When he originally conceived of a large inflatable satellite to win the hearts and devotion of the developing world, Werner von Braun called it an American Star.

I was going to post an actual review of Kenneth Goldsmith's new book, Capital, then the attacks in Paris happened. And then I thought I would write about Benjamin's The Arcades Project, which served as inspiration for Goldsmith's compendium. But I found the texts about Paris that fascinated Benjamin to be completely unhelpful for the situation I was in. I lived and worked between New York and Paris for several years until 2000. I embraced the 1999 edition of The Arcades Project as a map into my adopted city. And now that map felt out of date.

This is all too much information, though, for what I have decided to do, since no one really needs my warm take on a book that is, by design, nearly unreviewable, about a city, New York, that is equally impervious to encapsulation.

So here is a mashup of Capital and The Arcades Project, excerpting texts from whatever page I turn to, in turn. Benjamin first, p. 306:

WB: Baudelaire
Baudelaire's fatalism: "At the time of the coup d'état in December, he felt a sense of outrage. 'What a disgrace!' he cried at first; then he came to see things 'from a providential perspective' and resigned himself like a monk." Desjardins, "Charles Baudelaire," Revue bleue (1887), p. 19.

Baudelaire-according to Desjardins-unites the sensibility of the Marquis de Sade with the doctrines of Jansenius.

...

KG: Food-Chinese
Americans looked on with wonder and asked him what the name of the food was that his chef was preparing. His answer was "Chop Suey" which meant that it was a combination of mixed foods. He explained that it was a meal consisting of bean sprouts, celery and Chinese greens, plus amy more vegetables, with a touch of meat, usually pork. The guests begged him to let them taste it. They did. Immediately they clamored for more. Overnight, Chop Suey won widespread popularity.
Chinese residents in New York soon found a new field of endeavor open to them. They opened restaurants and called them "Chop Suey Houses." Many of these original Chop Suey Houses still exist.

Ringo Starr and Barbara Bach are decluttering and downsizing, from Monaco/Surrey/Snowmass/Beverly Hills to LA and a London apartment. Nearly 1400 lots of furniture, art, clothing, memorabilia, and borderline boot sale junk will be auctioned this week in LA. Here are some of the things:

"'This refectory table was left at Tittenhurst by John and Yoko when I took over the house. Enjoy!' - Ringo." That would be in 1971. Tittenhurst Park was outside London. Starr sold it to the Emir of Abu Dhabi in 1988, but took the table with him. Hey, here it is in the living room of Rydinghurst, Starr & Bach's Jacobean estate in Surrey, which they put up for sale last year. Look at how they lay down a Google-like blur on the artwork in estate agent photos.

And speaking of tables, what is up with that coffee table? It's big and moon-shaped and filled with gazing balls. Or giant Christmas ornaments? I cannot tell, and the designer Ringo Starr doesn't weigh in this time.

And speaking of gazing balls, holy smokes. Lot 608, Two Monumental Gazing Spheres [est. $3,000-5,000] They're from Rydinghurst, and each one is 36 inches across. Let's see Jeff Koons try to handle those. [WHAT, sold for just $1,920? Why didn't you ever get back to me with the condition report??]

And finally, speaking of satelloon-looking things, Lot 411, Galaxy Theme Platform Bed [est. $800-1,200] "'When we bought the house in 1992 in LA, we had this bed made so we could sleep under the stars and moons, and surrounded by the stars and moons.' - Ringo." Will the presumably LA-based Master Of The Ringo Starr's Bed Starscape with the initials SWG please come forward and take a bow? [Yes, well, sleeping in Ringo and Barbara's bed? Priceless, but apparently they'll take $875.]

They don't search well. The titles are opaque. The pricing across the series makes people wonder. And after surfing through the 800 even less expensive items in the "photographs > directly from artist" category, it turns out these aren't always even the most eye-popping.

So it really does come back to their unique situation, unlike literally every other thing on eBay: they were specifically made and chosen to not be sold. To not be found, and to not be found attractive. At least to a bidder or buyer. Yet they are still made and chosen in some way, for some surpassing reason beyond their function. [An image is required for every eBay listing, even a test listing with nothing to sell.] And so I'm intrigued by the otherwise invisible images made by otherwise invisible people, which are intended to be seen by no one but themselves and maybe their colleagues, and their bots.

Really I just wanted an excuse to post that [bear+deer=] beer statue picture.

Howard Rachofsky bought Felix Gonzalez-Torres' 1991 candy pour, "Untitled" (Rossmore)" in 1998. It consists of green wrapped candies spread on the floor with an ideal weight of 50 lbs. That was presumably the title when Ranbir Singh purchased it in 1991, and when he sold it in 1998, even though the 1997 catalogue raisonne lists it as "Untitled" (L.A.). [Another candy pour from 1991, also with green candies, but an ideal weight of 75 lbs., bears the orphan title "Untitled" (Rossmore II).] Rachofsky loaned his pour to the Modern Art Museum in Fort Worth, and exhibited in a bathtub of his Richard Meier-designed house.

ArtNEWS reports the buyer of "Untitled" (L.A.) is Alice Walton's Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. I would imagine that the politics of the Wal-Mart heir would have pissed off and/or inspired Felix to no end. But after re-reading his 1995 interview with Rob Storr about politics and culture and audience, and how he wanted to operate like a spy, I think he'd see the acquisition of his work by Crystal Bridges as a triumph. He has successfully infiltrated the beating red state heart of America's conservative plutocracy.

Of course, in the 20 years after the artist's death, the cultural terrain has shifted, and if it doesn't exactly end up being the wrong one, the mountain Felix scaled offers views of still higher, more difficult peaks.

And so it occurred to me almost instantly to make another piece, inspired by Walton's "Untitled" (L.A.) acquisition: "Untitled" (Crystal Bridges) consists of Wal-Mart money, free for the taking and endlessly replenished, with an ideal installation weight of 50 lbs. It could be a pour, but it probably works best in Felix's other trademark form, as a stack piece. It looks a bit like "Untitled" (Passport #II), but with cash instead of little booklets.

"Untitled" (Passport #II), 1993

A US banknote weighs just under a gram, so 50 lbs is around 25,000 bills. They should all be of the same denomination, whether it's singles ($25,000) or $100s ($2.5 million), as long as there is an endless supply.

$207 million of Sinaloa drug cartel cash weighed 4,500 lbs, not an ideal weight for the sculpture, but I'll leave that to the owner's discretion.

Since the Walton family only has $147 billion right now, they'll have to manage the installation with an eye on both ROI and replenishment rates. I'm sure they can do it.

Turns out used, street, dirty money takes up as much as 40% more space than crisp, fresh bank product, but the 1M Hauly can handle it all. When strapped, 10,000 bills fits into a 20.4 lb cube 18x12x6 inches. So if it were stacked, "Untitled" (Crystal Bridges) could be an 18x18-in square about 10 inches high. It's an adorable scale, domestic, almost intimate, which will provide endless [sic] enjoyment and engagement for museum visitors. As long as they don't get too grabby. And as long as the Waltons don't go broke.

[I haven't exactly asked, but I bet SDR Traveller would be willing to discuss the commission of a custom-sized travel bag for "Untitled" (Crystal Bridges). Interested collectors should get in touch with me for details.]

uncut sheets of new $100 bills at BEP in 2013, image: AP/LM Otero

UPDATE: OR, maybe there is another way. Uncut currency sheets sell for a premium from the Bureau of Printing & Engraving, but they'd really give the piece a Felixian feel. The ideal height for a stack of 32-note sheets like the ones above would be about 775 sheets, about 6 inches. The BEP online store only has 16-note sheets, though, for $1,800 each. See if you can get a volume discount, or a subscription.

A few weeks ago Eric Doeringer asked me to contribute to a project, RPFleaMarket, that poured Richard Prince-related appropriation objects into the eBay mold of Rob Pruitt's Flea Market. It's pretty awesome, and like Rob's own joint, everything comes with an autographed photo of the item for sale.

So if a never-released Untitled (300x404) proof printed on aluminum is not enticing enough for you, this one comes with a glossy 8x10 photo of it, suitable for framing!

There are also a couple of one-off hand-altered editions of the Cariou v. Prince documents, and a whole host of interesting objects, artifacts, publications, and LMAO IDKs. Check it out on Eric's eBay page.

I have not touched on my Hamilton amazement here yet. I figured I'd save it for the review, which would follow soon after getting tickets. [insert gif of endless horizon retreating from me.]

But I have to write about one place in the score that tears me up, when Chris Jackson sings George Washington's final address over Lin-Manuel Miranda's Hamilton, who reads it aloud:

[WASHINGTON]
...Like the scripture says:"Everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree
And no one shall make them afraid."
They'll be safe in the nation we've made
I want to sit under my own vine and fig tree
A moment alone in the shade
At home in this nation we've made
One last time

...

I anticipate with pleasing expectation
that retreat in which I promise myself
to realize the sweet enjoyment of partaking,
in the midst of my fellow-citizens,
the benign influence of good laws
Under a free government,
the ever-favorite object of my heart,
and the happy reward, as I trust,
Of our mutual cares, labors, and dangers.

Emphasis added for the lines that just do me in every time, even as I type about them now, as I think about the millions of people who don't feel safe in this nation we've made, or who find suffering, injustice, or even death, under the far-from-benign influence of our laws and government.

image: from the final page of the final manuscript of George Washington's Farewell Address, via gwpapers.virginia.edu

Until the small photocopy Tanya turned up last year and prompted me to do a related edition of it, I confess, I hadn't paid much attention to Cady Noland's works on paper. The silkscreen on aluminum pieces always felt graphic and photocopied enough, I guess. But that interchangeability is one thing that makes the works on paper interesting.

There was a similar frame on a larger work from 1991-2, a 40x32-inch silkscreen of a blown-up fragment of a Tanya wirephoto. It was sold at Christie's. At a benefit auction. For Leo DiCaprio's foundation. It went for 5x the estimate. It is listed as a "gift of the artist." So Noland is donating work to benefit auctions. Fascinating.

Oh hey, here's another one, Untitled (Patty in Church), sold in 2008, with what looks like a similar but sharper image, and an artist's frame. It's shown leaning against the wall, like some of the aluminum silkscreened pieces. Yes, it draws a connection, but does it also make you wonder what Ms. Noland might think of the apparently unframed image above?

And yes, here is Untitled (Patty in Church) leaning next to an aluminum piece. [Looks fragile, watch the bending!] Noland's works on paper are integral, not ancillary.

Untitled Xerox Cut-Out (Squeaky Fromme/Gerald Ford), 1994

Not everything turns up for sale, though it was. This clipped-together assemblage of cropped photocopies is from 1993-94 has a title, Untitled Xerox Cut-Out (Squeaky Fromme/Gerald Ford), and is one of three purchased for MoMA as part of the big Judith Rothschild acquisition. The others are of Betty Ford and John Dillinger. The Rothschild Hoard also includes 22 more Noland drawings, including a set of big set of Untitled for The Tower of Terror Studies from 1994. I don't know anything about these.